


And the Livin' is Easy...

by seventhTense



Category: Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Homophobia in Chapter 6+, P5R spoilers for Chapter 5+, Post-Persona 5: The Royal, Shuake Week 2020, Snuggling and Kissing, lots of kisses, overarching plot becomes clearer each chapter, post-royal, remembering pasts and planning futures, teasing and bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27628576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhTense/pseuds/seventhTense
Summary: Scenes from Goro and Akira's first summer in Akira's hometown; their first summer as boyfriends. Quiet moments, idle chatter, soft hands and warm lips, strengthening and strengthening again the bond between the two boys...[Written for Shuake Week 2020!]
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 17
Kudos: 93





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuake Week 2020: Day 1 - ~~Hope~~ / **Stars** / ~~Fantasy~~
> 
> Memories remembered and made one evening, lying on a hill behind Akira's parents' house...

“You really can see them all out here, can’t you?” Goro murmured reverently as he stared up at the gleaming tapestry above them. The chill of the night air in this part of the country was a bit sharper than Goro was used to, but the view had grasped his attention so tightly that he barely noticed it.

The view, and the warmth of the company by his side. “Sure can,” Akira drawled softly, definitely sounding less impressed than Goro was, but not dismissive or anything. “I remember some of the older folks here saying that the night sky in summertime’s one of the top three attractions in town. And also one of the only three attractions in town.”

Goro snorted, stretched his leg just far enough over that he could give Akira a nudge with his shoe. They were sprawled out on a smallish, grassy hill a few minutes’ walk from Akira’s parents’ house, had been since just after dinnertime. Akira had remembered an idle chat the two of them had once, back in Kichijoji, where Goro had apparently mentioned his love of space and sci-fi. Goro couldn’t remember the conversation for the life of him- he had probably been talking on autopilot again, his conscious mind too busy mooning over how pretty Akira was to pay attention to the words coming out of his own damn mouth.

Still, Akira remembered, and he was right. Goro always had a soft spot for stargazing and spaceships and all that jazz, so out they went. 

It was really nice. Quiet, peaceful, comfortable enough that Goro’s intrusive thoughts didn’t even manage to punch a hole in his good mood. 

He was laying with one hand rested on his chest, the other by his right side, where Akira was. Every so often, the tips of their fingers would brush against one another, and a pleasant little tingle would run through Goro’s whole body.

It was a really nice night.

“You know,” he began, his thoughts spilling out easily, less on autopilot and distraction this time and more just because he felt genuinely comfortable speaking his mind around Akira these days. “I memorized all of the constellations once, back when I was much younger.”

“No way,” Akira grinned, his eyes still on the stars, but an amused smile carrying in his voice.

Goro chuckled, nodded even though Akira wasn’t looking. “Mmhm. A childish attempt to impress that year’s foster family. They owned a powerful telescope, you see, and lived just far enough out on the fringes of Tokyo to be able to use it- showed it off to me my first night staying with them. This was my second or third forster family at that point, and I thought this one might keep me around if I showed off enough, or something like that. Didn’t work, of course. I barely remember any constellations at this point, other than the, ah, _major_ ones.”

“...was that a _constellation pun,_ Goro?”

“...possibly.”

Akira barked out a laugh, rough and more brazen than Goro had ever seen him act back in Tokyo. It warmed Goro’s heart to no end to see Akira letting his walls down like this- and made it much easier to lower his own walls in turn. Still chuckling, Akira leaned over and kissed Goro on the cheek. “You are _such_ a gigantic nerd, honey.”

Goro rolled his eyes, face heating up, still an easy blusher even from something as simple as a kiss on the cheek. “Says the valedictorian of his class at Shujin.”

“ _Pfft,_ yeah, sure, but I can down a Big Bang Cosmic Tower Burger in under fifteen minutes, I don't think someone who can pull that off can be called a nerd.” he quipped.

“Ah, yes, my mistake, you aren’t a nerd, you’re _revolting_.”

“That sounds more accurate, yeah.”

Sighing, Goro leaned over to plant a quick, forceful kiss on Akira’s cheek, just to make sure Akira knew he was just teasing- though going by the grin he was still wearing, he knew.

Goro rolled back to face the stars, and let silence fall between them once more. After a few minutes, Akira spoke up.

“I never learned any of the constellations,” he said, voice soft, reminiscing, kind of distant. “But when I was really little, I used to make up my own ones.”

“ _What?_ ” Goro snorted in disbelief- then after a beat, laughed. “No, actually that sounds exactly like the sort of thing you’d do.”

Akira did a cocky little _“Heheh~”_ sounding remarkably like Futaba. “Yeah, I’d just stare up at the sky and trace out whatever shapes I could think up. Didn’t understand why my parents and the other kids kept saying that my constellations didn’t count- I mean, someone else had to make those up off the top of their heads too. Just cause they made theirs up a couple millennia ago or whatever doesn’t make my Doraemon constellation less valid.”

Goro laughed, soft and heartfelt as Akira talked. Fuck, but this idiot was just... the best. As his laughter started to fade, Akira got a devious grin and scooted even closer to Goro, shoulder to shoulder, and nudged his arm under Goro’s neck, around his shoulders. “Here, let’s make some of our own up, right now.”

“Oh my god, Akira...” Goro snorted, but that did sound fun, so he just adjusted his body until he was able to lay his head on Akira’s shoulder and follow the line of Akira’s arm as he pointed up at the stars.

“Okay, so, right off the bat, see those ones? The long bunch with the cluster at the end? Arsene’s top hat, for sure.”

“...I can _barely_ see it, Akira.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t as if Scorpio actually looks like a real scorpion, right?”

“...point. Fine,” Goro nudged Akira’s hand over and began tracing out his own pattern. “See those ones, with the pointy cluster? Feather Black’s sword from season 3 of Neo Featherman.”

“Nerd.”

“That’s fair.”

Akira snickered. “Alright, then those eight look kinda like Jack Frost, if you turn your head a little.”

“That’s a stretch. Take four of those and add in these ones, and if you look at them from an angle, they look just like handcuffs.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Goro.”

Goro sputtered and tried to shove Akira, but they were too close and Akira just laughed and clung to Goro as he twisted and squirmed, making them roll around on the grass until Goro was laughing too, his clothes grass-stained and his hair all fucked up, and his heart thrumming with overwhelming, deeply content happiness.

Eventually they stilled, tangled up in one another, half staring into one another’s eyes, half staring at the reflections of the stars within them. They smiled, pulled each other even closer.

When their kisses stopped being enough to fight off the evening chill, they got up and headed back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from 'Summertime,' by George Gershwin!
> 
> Welcome to the 1st chapter of my Shuake Week 2020 fic! I wasn't gonna do anything for the week originally, what with my brain usually half-melted just from trying to write a new chapter of [ Like The Moon ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227510) every two weeks, but I got a bite of inspiration, and realized it was okay to just write quick little 1k vignettes for the first time in my goddamn life, so here we are!
> 
> At the time of posting this, it's already the middle of the night on Day 3 of Shuake Week, so I'm gonna post the first three chapters now, post ch 4 in the morning, and hopefully continue posting daily til we're done! The last two chapters are gonna be longer than the other 5, so I may miss Saturday and Sunday depending on how much writing I can get done, but fingers crossed that it all works out fine!!!
> 
> These are all gonna be just as fluffy and cheesy as this one was, with lots of kisses and shuake-flavored goofs, so expect more of the same going forwards1 These all take place in the same AU, and the circumstances that led to Goro and Akira just having a chill, kiss-heavy summer will get sprinkled in here and there as we go on! Hope y'all enjoy! I'll just post quick little chapter-by-chapter thoughts here in the end notes of each one until the end, then I'll do another twice-as-long-as-the-actual-fic wrap up on ch 7! If you'd like to see more regular updates on my writing, or just want to see me get hype as hell that I've been able to write so many fics in so few days, my twitter is [ @SevventhSteen! ](https://twitter.com/SevventhSteen)
> 
> See ya in like 10 minutes for the next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuake Week 2020: Day 2 - ~~Corruption~~ / ~~Masks~~ / **Games**
> 
> New experiences, as Goro sets up his Switch in Akira's bedroom one afternoon, determined to show him some video games that were actually made this century...

From behind the 20-inch flatscreen they had set up on top of Akira’s still-half-unpacked boxes from Tokyo, Goro reached out an arm and waved to Akira. “Can you pass me the HDMI cable now?”

“What the hell is an HDMI cable?” Akira replied, bewildered, picking through the mess of cords and plastic cases around him.

“I cannot fucking believe you,” Goro sighed despairingly, and popped back out from behind the TV to grab it himself. “How in the hell did you live in Tokyo for almost a _year_ and never progressed beyond a grade-schooler’s level of technological literacy?”

Akira groaned, crossed his arms, embarrassed. “Screw off. Futaba handled all that stuff, and it wasn’t like I could afford anything that needed any weird, fancy cables or whatever. I had unlicensed medicine and plastic swords to buy.”

“Mmhm,” Goro droned dismissively as he finished setting up his console. Akira flopped back to lean against his bedframe, idly watching Goro do his stuff. “Well, she- Futaba, that is- made me promise to show you how to play at least one video game from this century at some point this summer, so it’s time to get used to things like- what did you call them, _‘fancy cables?’_ ” Goro peeked out from behind the TV to give Akira a bewildered look. Akira glared at him. “Jesus christ,” Goro rolled his eyes, and finished shoving whatever it was that he was shoving into the back of the TV.

“It isn’t like I’ve never played a game before,” Akira groused, and he could admit, he was being a little petulant, a little childish, but Goro was being a bully, so he had the right to. “Mona and I played a ton of games together-”

“-on a knock-off Famicom, if I remember correctly, yes. Akira those weren’t even real games, they were cheap, glitchy imitations of the _real_ classics- and they’re all twenty or thirty years old anyways.” Goro grabbed a controller and crawled over to sit next to Akira, patted his knee condescendingly. “It’s time to join the modern era, old-timer. I know it’s scary, but I’ll be right here by your side the whole time, alright?”

Goro was really up on his high horse today, and it was starting to irk Akira a little- not seriously, but enough to make him want to mess with Goro back. He growled, channeling some of his more feral Personas, and before Goro could react, grabbed him by the collar of his dumb sweatervest and pulled him in for a long, rough kiss. Goro’s eyes went wide in surprise, and he only managed to collect himself and kiss back for a few seconds before Akira let go and leaned back against the bed, licking his lips and letting out the rest of his annoyance in a big sigh. “Alright, fine. Show me these new-fangled games of yours, _sensei_ , that I might gain even a fraction of your mastery.”

“...uhm... yes, right,” Goro stammered, and Akira didn’t even bother to hide the smug smirk at the overwhelming success of his counterattack. _Got ‘em._

Goro pressed something on the controller, and the console and TV both turned on as one, which impressed the hell out of Akira, if he was honest. He knew that he’d come off as even more of a luddite if he showed that, though, so he just focused on the screen itself as the Switch booted up.

“Well,” Goro cleared his throat, back in control of himself again. “Let’s start off with something you probably at least have heard of- I remember the handheld version of this being pretty popular for a while...”

Akira did recognize the game Goro navigated over to; the latest Monster Hunter game. “I think Ryuji had been wanting to get this one...” he remembered.

Goro scoffed. “Well, let’s hope the game itself is of a higher quality than Ryuji’s interest in it implies...”

Akira thought that the little schoolboy mini-rivalry that Goro and Ryuji had going between them was pretty cute, so he didn’t comment on that, but... something about the way Goro said that stuck out to Akira. Why would Goro be _hoping_ that this game would be good? This was Goro’s Switch, he owned it!

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for Akira to realize that this was not the game for him. The opening was pretty cool, running around on the back of a giant dragon and such, but the controls for the combat were a touch too complex. When it came time to actually go out and hunt the damn monsters, Akira got lost got his ass handed to him by some basic-level enemies twice, then got lost for ten minutes before giving up on the game entirely.

At least Goro had the good graces not to laugh at Akira for that pathetic display. More than anything, he just looked embarrassed, muttering “Perhaps we should try something a bit less... intense.” He sorted through the pile of games he had brought with him, eyes just as serious as when Akria had seen him pouring over case files back at Leblanc.

Eventually, he settled on a Zelda game, the new one that Akira had seen advertised on TV a bunch over the last few years. The controls were definitely easier, and there was something about the art style that felt really familiar and comfortable to Akria, but... well...

“This is horseshit,” Goro growled as Link’s scantily-clad body went flying off into the distance, blasted into smithereens by that ancient robot’s neon-blue laser for like the eighth time in a row. He passed the controller back to Akira- they had started taking turns trying to sneak past the thing after the third time Akira got blown up, but whether Goro tried to attack the robot first, or Akira tried to sneak around, or when they just started trying to run to safety as fast as they could, somehow that big blue laser kept finding its way right into Link’s poor little butt.

“Did you never get past this part when you played?” Akira sighed, reloading back in. Goro didn’t answer, and when Akira paused and turned to look at him, the ex-detective was looking away, the tips of his ears poking through his hair, bright red. 

A few seconds later, all the gears clicked into place. “You... you’ve never played any of these before, have you?” 

Goro groaned, slumped back against the bedframe. “I never had the time! Schoolwork and Police work and Metaverse bullshit... I thought games might help relieve the stress of it all, and I had all this money lying around from all the shadows I fought and what the cops and the shitty chromedome paid me, so I just... bought all the consoles! And the most popular games for them! And signed up for all the subscription services they had! And then over three years, I booted up the Switch maybe _four_ times, booted up the N64 emulator that came with the subscription, and just played the old Mario games I used to want as a kid!” He threw his hands up in the air, face fully red and eyes wild. “I didn’t even play Mario Goddamn 64! I just spent a few mindless hours on the racing and board game ones, then passed out on the couch!”

He didn’t like how regretful and self-downing Goro sounded, but... Akira couldn’t help but grin. Goro really was just the cutest sometimes. He pulled the grumpy, flushed detective close, kissed the top of his head and pet his hair. Goro grumbled, muttering something petulant sounding into Akira’s neck, but didn’t try to get out of the hug.

After a minute or two, Akira let go and gave Goro a gentle smile. “How ‘bout you show me those, then?”

Goro sighed, nodded. “Fine. You’d better not tell Futaba about this, though. I’ll never hear the end of it...”

He booted up the emulator, and started up the third Mario Party game. It was pretty silly and childish, and they quipped their way through the ‘cutscenes’ that played when the game first booted up.

When they started playing actual matches though...

“You _bastard,_ ” Goro swore, gripping his controller tight enough to make the plastic squeak. Akira just leaned back against his bed, smiling smugly as the ghost he just paid stole Goro’s only Star. “I’ll get you for this...”

“You’ll try,” Akira taunted, and oh the look Goro gave him got his heart beating awful fast.

A few minutes later, and Akira let out a loud, long groan of defeat as Goro’s dumb little red plumber shoved him off the edge of the platform in the minigame they were playing. Goro’s cackles echoed throughout Akira’s bedroom. “That was the scariest thing that’s ever fucking happened to me,” Akira whined, staring down at the floor. “You came at me _so fast,_ shoved all the NPCs out of the way like they were nothing...”

Goro just kept cackling. Akira was gonna fucking _get this asshole._

The game ended up taking almost a whole hour to beat, with how ruthlessly they were playing. They stole each other’s stars, cut off paths on the board, crushed the NPCs so badly that by the end of the game, Akira and Goro were the only ones with Coins or Stars in the double digits, tied neck-and-neck, with only the random-as-hell bonus stars left to decide who won.

When the final bonus star came down, breaking the deadlock and awarding Goro the winning point, Akira cried out in defeat, slammed the floor with his fists, Goro yelling _“FUCK YES!!”_ at the top of his lungs, pumping his fist in the air, panting as if he had just won a marathon-

-Akira’s bedroom door swung open, his mom poking her head through, glaring at them. “Will you boys _please_ keep it down?”

Goro slowly lowered his arm back down, and Akira nodded. “Sorry...”

She just sighed and closed the door.

A beat, and then Akria turned and dove towards Goro, grabbing his face and kissing him even harder than he had earlier. Goro made a surprised noise, but kissed back with the same passion a second later, the residual energy from their game coming back to life as the heat grew.

Akira was panting too when he finally broke off the kiss, his eyes locked with Goro’s “I’m _so fucking horny_ now, for some reason.”

Goro barked out a laugh- then caught himself, and laughed more quietly. “Well, as long as we keep it down, I suppose...” A wild grin grew on his flushed lips. “Though I’ve never heard of these kinds of games being used as _foreplay_ , of all things...”

“It’s us; I’m not that surprised.”

“No, me neither...”

They kissed again as they made their way from the floor to the bed, Mario showboating on the TV as the cheery victory music played on...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided that, at least for the purposes of this fic, A) Akira's ancient game console is one of those knock-off retro consoles that they sell at like Toys-R-Us and shit, and B) Persona 5 also exists in a world where Nintendo decided not to be money-grubbing bastards and just released an N64 emulator for their Online subscription, along with the NES and SNES ones they have in the real world.
> 
> Yes, Akira's experience with Monster Hunter World is taken from my own attempt to play the game. I adore BoTW though, beaten it at least 3 times now. Akira and Goro's experience with Mario Party is taken from the bloodthirsty MP games I've played with my own boyfriend; that shit can get _intense..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuake Week 2020: Day 3 - ~~Role Swap~~ / **Chocolate** / ~~Comfort~~
> 
> Having missed the chance to on Valentine's or White day, Akira decides that the middle of the Summer is the perfect time for him and Goro to make some chocolates for each other...

“This is silly,” Goro sighed, wiping his hands off on his pants. “Who the hell makes Valentine’s chocolates in the middle of the summer?”

Akira didn’t seem bothered in the least, pouring little discs of baking chocolate into a measuring cup, then pouring the discs into a bowl. “Well, if _somebody_ hadn’t been mysteriously missing on the real Valentine’s and White Day, we wouldn’t have to be, but here we are.”

Guilt bubbled up in Goro’s chest, and he looked down. “I’m... I really am sorry, Akira. I had to make sure the remnants of Shido’s co-conspirators weren’t hunting me down, and then-”

Arms wrapped around Goro, and he felt Akira press a warm kiss to his cheek. “I was just kidding, honey, I’m sorry,” he reassured him, squeezing them together. “What matters is that you’re safe, and you’re here now, right?”

“...right.” Goro had a feeling that guilt would be a near-constant companion for him for as long as he and Akira were together- for the rest of Goro's life, really. But... Akira was right. What mattered most was that they were together, and would stay that way for a very long time, if Goro had anything to say about it.

They hugged a bit more, then broke apart. “Alright,” Goro huffed, hands moving to his hips. “How can I help?”

“Hmmm...” Akira hummed, staring at the recipe he had pulled up on his phone. He looked thoughtful, but for some reason, Goro was picking up something _more_ than just concentration in Akira’s tone, in his eyes... “We’ve got all the ingredients portioned out... let’s get a few saucepans set on the burners, so we can make a couple different types.”

“...alright,” Goro cautiously followed Akira’s commands, though he had a bad feeling about where this was going. “I’ve heard that tempering chocolate properly- that is, making it all shiny and resistant to melting, it’s apparently quite a difficult process.”

“Eh, as long as it tastes good, that’s all that matters, right?” Akira’s typical cavalier attitude was only making Goro more nervous. “It isn’t like we’re trying to impress anybody here, we’re already dating.”

Goro sighed, shaking his head. No wonder Akira had been single for so long. “That’s exactly the sort of attitude that can very quickly _end_ a relationship, Akira. Well,” he cocked his head to the side, reconsidering. “Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, you _are_ right, the taste is the most important thing, I couldn’t really give a rat’s ass whether the damn things are shiny or not. Still, I’m definitely in the minority when it comes to that particular point of view.”

“Hmm, know that from experience, do you?” Akira teased, nudging Goro with his elbow as he brought the bowls over to the stovetop. 

“...I know that from having even the most bare-bones exposure to the world at large,” Goro deadpanned back. “I’m pretty sure even _Futaba_ knows that much.”

Akira just chuckled, ignoring the comment completely. “Right, well, let’s get to it, shall we? You pour the water into the pans, and I’ll separate everything else into equal parts, so we can fuck around.”

Goro did as instructed, though he stole a few glances at Akira while he poured. “You know that fucking around while cooking usually just... _ruins_ whatever you’re cooking, right?”

“Mneh,” Akira shrugged the doubts away. Well, whatever. It’s his house, he can burn it down if he wants to. 

Or at least that’s what Goro thought. But while Goro made _very_ certain to keep one batch free of Akira’s chaotic dumbassitry, other than _actually_ burning the house down, the rest of his concoctions hit almost every cooking mishap in the book. A batch he spiked with olive oil got too hot too fast, boiling and bubbling over into the water it was supposed to be gently simmering over. He added some of his parents’ spare miso paste to another while it was cooking, and somehow that made it all end up burnt and stuck to the bowl it was cooking in.

A couple experiments at least made it into the molds, looking more or less like normal chocolate at that stage. But the ones that Akira had put some tiny balls of cookie dough into (under the concept of a ‘reverse chocolate-chip cookie’) didn’t set at all, and the one that Akira had mixed yuzu juice into (a fact that Goro had only learned after biting into the damn thing) tasted like coffee-soaked feet.

The batch Goro had been in charge of turned out fantastic, of course, and some of them even came out looking more or less tempered. They snacked on those while Akira sulked.

“I honestly don’t know what you were expecting,” Goro said, a bit of a smug smile on his lips as he munched. “I did warn you, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Akira sighed... then his eyes slid to Goro’s lips, and he smirked. “...I got you to smile though.”

Goro sputtered a bit as he swallowed. “You- that’s-” He coughed, cleared his throat, glared at Akira as he drank some water, Akira looking like a prideful little cat now. “...that was your plan from the beginning, wasn’t it?”

“That was the plan,” Akira nodded, picking up his own glass of water and clicking it with Goro’s. “To give you a laugh. And you got one~”

Goro rolled his eyes, then leaned over the table and gave Akira a rough peck on the cheek. “Well that’s very sweet of you. Annoyingly sneaky, in a way that I somehow didn’t see through, but sweet all the same.”

“Sweeter than that crap that came out of my pans at least,” Akira snarked, and Goro snorted...

...then his eyes fell on the assortment of bullshit ingredients that Akira had pulled out of his parents cupboards. Now that he wasn’t caught up in Akira’s wild pace, the gears in his head were turning again...

“...you’ve got that detective-y, think-y look in your eyes,” Akira pointed out cautiously. He nudged Goro’s ankle with his foot. “What’s up?”

Goro leaned back in his chair, his fingers going to his chin. “...I suppose you _could_ have added in something like miso _powder_ , if you mixed it in with the cocoa powder before you started melting everything together. It’d _probably_ still set- and I have heard of that sort of thing made in specialty chocolate shops and the such.”

Akira beamed, visibly getting excited again. “What if I added in Sojiro’s blend of curry spices too?!”

“...it’d taste disgusting, but theoretically, it’d probably work,” Goro deadpanned back.

Akira’s beaming smile grew devious again. “I’ll eat it if you will.”

Oh, now turning it into a competition just wasn’t fair. “...deal.”

Akira shot up out of his seat and instantly started rummaging around for a new bowl and pan, and Goro felt the strangest mixture of dread and deeply content happiness settle in his chest. What a weird, perfect summer’s Valentine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it wasn't obvious, I've never tried to make chocolate before myself. I've watched enough _Bon Appetit_ (RIP) to know just barely enough about it to write this, though.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuake Week 2020: Day 4 - **Festival** / ~~Vacations~~ / ~~Seasons~~
> 
> It's time for Akira's hometown to throw their yearly summer festival, and he and Goro are dressed to the absolute nines. They take in the sights, sample the festival fare, and reminice about festivals past...

One of the only good things about Akira’s hometown being so old-fashioned and out in the sticks was that when it came time for the more traditional Japanese customs and festivals, there was always at least one octogenarian somewhere in town that was a master of anything and everything related to it.

So, thanks to that and to Goro’s deep pockets, when it came time for the town’s big summer festival, Akira and Goro got to stroll amongst the stands and stalls decked out in the fanciest, priciest, _coolest_ yukata Akira had ever even _seen_ , much less wore.

“I’ll have to thank that old-timer; it feels pretty good walking around with the prettiest person at the festival on my arm,” Akira murmured into Goro’s ear, reveling in the stares they were getting, squeezing Goro’s hand.

His boyfriend just scoffed. “That’d be the case whether we had the yukata or not,” he quipped, squeezing Akira’s hand back. “But to be fair, I feel the same way. You look _extremely_ sexy in all that black and red silk, Akira. Thank fuck I’m not wearing anything constrictive under this.

Blood rushed to Akira’s face, and he ducked his head, lifting up his fan and hiding his face. Goro laughed, squeezed his hand again, running his thumb along Akira’s knuckles. Smooth, oversexed bastard.

Eventually the embarrassment faded, and the two of them went back to idly wander through the festival. It wasn’t a huge affair or anything, just twenty or so stalls in a field by the local shrine, but it had everything you’d expect a festival to have. Akira and Goro both managed to catch a fish on one of those little rice-paper ‘nets,’ letting the fish go afterwards, (though Akira quipped that they could have fed them to Morgana, if he were there). Akira munched on a tray of takoyaki with a delighted face, while Goro got himself a chocolate crepe with all the fixings- his Detective-Prince, instagram-friendly love of sweets was genuine, who would have guessed? Encouraged by Akira, Goro even played (and absolutely wrecked shop at) one of those pop-the-balloons-with-a-pellet-gun games, just so he could win the latest Feather Black mask they had as a reward. He wore it on the side of his head for the rest of the night, the little-kid-ass accessory absolutely clashing with his fancy yukata, and Akira loved him very, very much.

Eventually, they ran out of new stalls to peruse, and the fireworks still weren’t starting for a little bit, so they just tried to find a decent spot to watch the show from, chatting as they settled near the side of the field.

“I don’t remember a ton of the festivals I went to as a kid,” Akira thought back, staring up at the stars. “But there was one time, at of the first ones I went to, right around the time I was starting to walk on my own... I remember seeing these really cool-looking fireflies and running off to chase them when my parents weren’t looking. I ended up in the woods nearby, totally lost, but I didn’t freak out or anything, I just played around in the forest all night.”

Goro snorted. “That does sound like you, yes.”

Akira grinned; he really always had been a bit of a Trickster. “I probably would have stayed out there til they had to send out a search party for me, but I ended up stumbling across some teenagers making out. I was too young to be embarrassed, but they were super pissed off. Argued the whole time while they were guiding me back to the festival. I might have broken them up, thinking back on it...”

“Holy shit...” Goro was cracking up now, leaning the non-mask-side of his head against Akira’s arm as he chuckled. “A force of chaos since birth... goddamn...”

Akira ruffled his boyfriend’s hair, then stroked it idly as Goro calmed back down. “How about you,” he asked, offering Goro a bottled water, once he could breathe again. “What’s the first festival you remember going to?”

Goro’s smile grew a bit less bright at that, and Akira was about to take the question back when Goro held up his hand. “It’s alright, it isn’t a bad memory, just a sort of... bittersweet one, I suppose.” He took a drink of water, straightened up a little, but kept leaning against Akira’s side as he spoke. “The first one I remember was back when my mother was still alive... we had been living in an apartment above the soapland she worked at for at least a year, but no matter how much she tried to talk it out with the sleazeball who ran the place, he wouldn’t give her the night of the festival off. Fucking shitstain actually gave all the _other_ girls the night off, just to make her have to work twice as hard. Spiteful little son of a bitch.”

He sighed, and Akira leaned his head against the top of Goro’s, hoping to hell that it felt soothing and not just heavy. Goro seemed to calm down either way, and continued. “That said, the rest of the girls there liked my mom and hated their boss, so they spent the night with me instead. We got all the tastiest treats they were selling at the stalls, and sneaked up onto the roof of the soapland to watch the fireworks. I remember them braiding my hair and saying what a cute little ladykiller I was... it was silly, but they made me feel special, even if only for one night.”

_Bittersweet, indeed,_ Akira thought, his arm slipping down from where it had been resting on Goro’s shoulder to wrap around his waist. Goro shifted, looked up at Akira, and his smile was soft and warm and heartfelt now. “Though now, of coruse, I feel special most every night. Strange how much a life can change, hm?”

Well, Akira couldn’t _not_ kiss him after a line like that. He leaned down, and Goro straightened up the rest of the way until their lips met, and they kissed, slow and warm. 

When Akira felt too many eyes staring holes in them, he broke out of the kiss and took Goro’s hand again. “C’mon,” he mumbled, lips still numb and buzzing.

Wordlessly, Goro followed, and Akira led the two of them away from the stalls and up a few sets of stone stairs, until they reached the temple itself. It was quiet there, deserted, but Akira pulled Goro behind some trees anyways, just in case.

He pushed Goro up against the tree and started pressing a line of kisses against his neck. Goro gasped, but laughed a little too. “Jesus, Akira, if feels like you dragged me into the middle of some clinched shojo manga.”

Akira chuckled against Goro’s skin, bit into it. Goro groaned, grabbed Akira’s shoulders and flipped them around, pressing Akira against the tree this time. His eyes were practically glowing, his skin flushed, the cool night air making little clouds of steam puff out of his mouth as he panted. “Though,” he said, getting closer, sliding a leg between Akira’s. “Now that we’re here, we might as well play the part...”

Neither of them saw much of the fireworks that night, but according to the paper the next day, they were the best the town had seen in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good yukata are _expensiiiiiiive!!!_ Beautiful, but expensive!
> 
> I've never been to a summer festival, or at least not a Japanese-style one. US summer faires are... very much their own kind of thing, especially the country-ass ones I've been to, so most of this is pulled from what I've seen in the tropey anime I've watched. X}P
> 
> For those who, like me, had to google it when they first saw the term used, a 'soapland' is a kind of old-fashioned type of Japanese brothel that just barely skirts around the anti-prostitution laws there. You aren't allowed to charge for penetrative sex in Japan, so at a soapland, they bathe and 'soap' the customers up, and you can pretty much imagine where things go from there. Thanks go to the newest Yakuza game for getting me to look all that up!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuake Week 2020: Day 5 - ~~Opposites~~ / ~~Home~~ / **Outfits**
> 
> The heat has melted Goro and Akira's brains, and from that soupy boredom floats up a memory- a conversation they had, back in Tokyo, where Goro mentioned swapping clothes for a day out of the blue. They hadn't followed through on it back then, but now...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning: This chapter gets a little raunchy! Not any explicit sex or anything, but still, be forewarned!

It was getting late in the summer, just a couple more weeks left before school started back up, and Akira and Goro had more or less run out of things to do. Either that, or it was just too hot for them to be able to think up any new ideas. They always had each other, of course, and Goro was pretty sure he could spend the rest of his life around Akira and still never be bored talking with him, but, again, the heat had melted their brains, so that wasn’t really an option either.

Though, melted brains had never stopped Akira from talking yet. “Yo...” he drawled, sprawled out on the carpet next to Goro. “Do you remember the time you called me up and, just, like, completely out of nowhere, started talking about us swapping clothes for a day?”

Goro frowned, squinted up at the ceiling as he thought back... then his eyes snapped open wide as the memory hit him. “Oh god...” he groaned, slapping a sweaty palm onto his forehead. 

“It wasn’t a bad thing Goro, come on,” Akira tried to reassure him, but he was chuckling even as he said it, so fuck him.

“Uuuuugh...” Goro groaned again, louder this time. “It’s just embarrassing... every time I think back to the times we hung out back then, it’s either a fond, fuzzy feeling in my chest or total, abject, morbid embarrassment. No in-between.” Akira was chuckling again, and Goro swatted at him. It didn’t stop the chuckling. Goro groaned a third time. “I just can’t believe I kept just... randomly blurting out intimate details of my past, or my dumb private fantasies in the middle of otherwise _normal_ conversations...”

“You’ve always been a bit of a hot mess, honey,” Akria agreed, pushing himself up off the floor so he could give Goro a kiss on his forehead. Goro swatted at him again, but it was halfhearted; even in the sweltering heat, kisses felt nice. Most of the time. “But it’s one of my favorite parts of you. Means that I don’t have to be quite as hyper-anxious about my own hot messes.”

“Mgh,” Goro grunted non-committaly. If Akira was comforted by their mutual walking-disaster-ness, he guessed that was a good thing, but it didn’t make the suffocating punch of embarrassment any less mortifying when it hit. 

A few seconds passed, and then, “...wait, did you say that us swapping clothes was one of your _private fantasies?”_ Akira realized, delight and excitement steadily growing in the shittiest way possible with every word. 

_“Shut up!!!...”_ he covered his face with one hand and tried to whack at Akira with the other, while Akira just laughed and squirmed and slapped back at his hand.

When they finally calmed down, Goro lowered his hand from his face, and when he turned towards Akira, there were excited little stars in his eyes. God, his boyfriend was such a cute little asshole sometimes. 

A beat, and then, “...you know, I still have my Shujin outfit,” he murmured, excitement palpable in his voice.

...and now Goro was starting to get into the idea too, unable to hold back a slowly growing grin. “...to be fair,” his eyes flicked over to the stairs just visible through the living room doorway, leading up to Akira’s room. “I _did_ come here wearing my old school uniform...” His gaze flicked back to Akira’s, and they were both wearing big smiles now. “I take it you want to...?”

Akira nodded a whole bunch, and Goro laughed, and they both got to their feet, Akira grabbing Goro’s hand and practically dragging him upstairs, which only made Goro laugh all the more. This was so stupid. So childish and stupid and Goro was _so fucking excited._

They got to Akira’s room, feet thumping so loudly on the floor that Goro felt immensely grateful that Akira’s parents were out on an errand today. It took a bit of digging through Akira’s closet; they had fully unpacked his boxes and Goro’s comparatively meager collection of belongings a while back, but because it was summer and they were feeling lazy most days, they had just been wearing Akira’s old, threadbare clothes from before he came to Tokyo up until now. But, soon enough, with a cry of victory Akira found and pulled out both of their uniforms, still relatively unwrinkled, somehow. 

Goro, still grinning, grabbed Akira’s Shujin uniform and hung it on the knob of one of Akira’s closet doors. He turned away from Akira as he stripped out of his t-shirt and shorts and started pulling on the surprisingly comfortable slacks and suspenders and so on. 

To be clear, he wasn’t hiding his mostly-unclothed body from Akira while he changed or anything; the two of them had seen each other naked plenty of times by now. It was just...somehow, turning his back to Akira while he changed gave the whole process a thrilling little current of electricity, of anticipation, his mind buzzing as he waited to see what Akira would look like...

After several minutes (because damn, both of their uniforms were not the simplest outfits in the world, huh), Goro cleared his throat and, _very_ nervously for some reason, announced, “I-I’m ready... whenever you are, th-that is...”

“Uh, me too...” Akira called back, and oh god he sounded just as on-edge as Goro felt. Oh boy...

“...so..”

“Uhm...”

“...on three, then?”

“Jesus fuck, Goro, let’s just turn around already!”

“Fine! Fine,” Goro bit back, then, ripping off the band-aid, he turned around-

Oh. 

Oh _boy._

“...that’s hot,” he said, without an ounce of inflection. Because... good god.

Goro’s outfit had always been just a hair too tight to be comfortable, but he had borne with it, partially because asking his school’s staff for a new uniform one size up would have been be mortifying, mostly because he knew that tight or not, it made him look damn good.

On Goro, it was just a hair too tight, in all the most flattering ways, of course. On Akira, who had apparently spent most of his spare time between Shido’s downfall and his and Goro’s reunion becoming a bit of a gym rat, and had spent the rest of the year before that rapidly growing even stronger in the Metaverse than Goro had managed to become in three years, it was downright _pornographic._

Goro’s blazer hugged Akira as if it were a goddamn corset. The double-breasted buttons strained even as Akira just stood there, and while Goro could only see the collar of the button-up Akira wore under it, he could see the fabric straining there too, little glimpses of Akira’s skin visible between the first and second buttons.

The black slacks clung to every bend and curve of Akira’s leg muscles, and not just his legs either; The pants clung so tightly and were made of such a delicate materiel that Goro could see the full outline of Akira’s dick hanging off to one side, the full curve of the shaft and even the gorgeous bell-like dip and curve of the head- all the more apparent because Akira was _very obviously hard already._

Goro was certain that his mouth was watering, looking at his lover dressed like _this._ He imagined what Akira’s ass must look like in those slacks, and- yep, his mouth was actually watering now. Hot damn. Hot, _hot_ damn.

He tore his gaze away from the visual feast before him, dragged it back up to Akira’s face-

-oh boy. Akira’s mouth was watering too.

Akira’s eyes snapped back to meet Goro’s. They wiped their mouths as one, and Akira swallowed thickly. 

“Heh... what does it say about our egos that we get so...” Goro had to clear his throat, take a few quick, deep-ish breaths. _“Incredibly_ turned on just from seeing each other wearing each other’s school clothes?”

“Goro, it is _definitely_ not just the clothes,” Akira shook his head slowly, eyes still wide as they could be. “Or, uh, seeing you wearing mine is part of it, but...”

Goro did suppose that Akira’s outfit felt pretty tight on him, too. Comfortable, but that turtleneck definitely was... _form-fitting._

Akira swallowed again. “But, uh, yeah, the ego thing too... though that isn’t _that_ surprising, my strongest Persona was a skyscraper-tall demon lord, and yours was basically Buff, Bara, Bow-Batman.”

“...that’s fair.” A little cringey, but it _was_ who they were at their core.

His embarrassment fading and his heated, flushed excitement rising up again, Akira took a few steps closer. Goro did too, until his hands instinctively slid onto Akira’s waist, Akira’s arms wrapping around Goro’s back. “You know,” Akira murmured hotly into Goro’s ear. Goro shuddered. It was too hot, too sweaty and sweltering, especially with the blazer and the goddamn turtleneck, but fuck if Goro wasn’t too horny to care at this point. “If this is as much of a turn-on for the both of us as it, uh,” he brushed their very prominent erections together; Goro gasped and briefly saw stars. Holy fuck. “As it obviously is... we should see about getting some more costumes, whenever we live somewhere where we can store them without my damn parents potentially finding ‘em...”

Goro felt his face grow hotter, somehow, at the thought of it, and his hands slid slowly from Akira’s hips to his ass. “...to be honest,” he mused, his voice dipping into a lower register than he had known he was capable of. “I would give a lung to see you in your Joker outfit again. _Fuck_ but you were the hottest thing I’d ever seen, even when I was just stalking you all from afar...”

Akira laughed, soft and surprised, then nuzzled closer. “I was thinking more along the lines of maid outfits and sexy cat costumes, but...” Goro blushed, embarrassed for a split-second before Akira reached around and squeezed his ass too. “...now that you mention it, I’ve always wanted to squeeze your ass in that tight-as-hell Black Mask bodysuit of yours...”

Goro’s turn to laugh now. “I wondered why you always made me go first through the vents in Maruki’s Palace...”

They both chuckled and laughed, touched and squeezed, then kissed and held each other tighter than their uniforms did, making the most of the present and making wonderful plans for the future...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a few liberties with how tight their everyday clothes are, but look at the official renders and tell me that those don't look like they'd be tight as all hell. The price of fashion, I guess.
> 
> I'm less confident about this chapter as a whole, but the train doesn't stop here! See you in ch 6, where the plot starts to kick into gear...


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuake Week 2020: Day 6 - ~~Sins~~ / ~~Partnership~~ / **Per Aspera Ad Astra**
> 
> There's tension in the air one night, Goro noticing some mysterious worry loudly buzzing inside Akira's head. A chance encounter makes that worry bleed into an old, suddenly re-opened wound, and the two of them end up back on the hill behind Akira's house, sharing their past pains, planting the seeds for their future happiness...
> 
> _Per Aspera Ad Astra; Through hardships, to the stars..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added it to the tags, but there's two things to watch out for here! First, some very mild homophobia directed at our dear boys. Second, some slight P5R spoilers- and honestly, there's just gonna be more of those from here on out, so be wary!
> 
> Enjoy!

It was getting late one evening, towards the end of the summer. Goro and Akira were strolling through the small town, hand in hand, whiling away the hours, and something was wrong. 

Goro could feel it, as if Akira was radiating air pressure, a heaviness to the way he was carrying himself, a tension to his muscles. He had been like this, more or less, all day, and thinking back on it, Akira had actually been kind of uptight for a few days now, though it had only gotten this bad since a few minutes after they started their walk this evening.

He wasn’t sure what was going on with Akira, but Goro was absolutely certain that he was going to have a mental breakdown if this tense atmosphere lasted a moment longer without any explanation. He slowed his steps, turned towards Akira-

“Oi, you boys there,” a nasal voice called from the other side of the street. Goro and Akira both froze, looking towards the source of the voice-

-and finding a Police Officer coming towards them, crossing the street. He looked somewhere in his fifties, the age showing in the lines on his face, the thinness of what little hair was poking out from under his cap. There was still enough ambient light out so that they could see each other easily enough, but the cop looked like the kind of guy who would be aggressively pointing his flashlight right into their faces if he had the opportunity to.

Akira’s grip on Goro’s hand was incredibly tight now.

“You two are out awful late, aren’t ya?” The cop asked, suspicion heavy on his voice, which was patently absurd to Goro, as it was still summer break, and they were obviously just walking through town. The hell was this dipshit’s problem?

Thankfully, while Goro didn’t care too much about the consequences of showing his true face to random strangers anymore, he did have the sense to not expose Akira to the consequences of doing that to a goddamn cop. So, he summoned up what was left of his Charming Boy mask and gave the officer a bright, chipper smile. “Just taking an evening stroll, officer. Better for growing boys like us to get some fresh air when it’s so lovely out, rather than stay in our rooms all the time playing video games, right?”

The cop pursed his lips, seeming dissatisfied with Goro’s answer- or rather, seeming dissatisfied that he couldn’t think of anything to disapprove of or nag about in Goro’s answer. _Take that, you stuck-up bastard._

There were a few tense moments of silence, and the cop’s eyes slid to Akira. He stared at him for a few moments, his eyebrows raising, and he opened his mouth again, looking like he was about to say something-

-then, slowly, closed it again. Goro wasn’t sure what had happened there, but Akira’s eyes were firmly on the pavement in front of his feet, and the cop looked generally uncomfortable. Goro squeezed Akira’s hand in a way he hoped was reassuring; no response.

A few more moments, and then the cop’s eyes shifted to somewhere between Akira and Goro, and his eyebrows shot up. His pursed lips shifted into a big frown, and he pulled out his baton. Goro tensed up instantly, ready to kick this motherfucker’s ass if it came to that-

-but the cop just pointed the baton at Goro and Akira’s hands- at them _holding each other’s hands,_ and drawled archly, “You two, now don’t you do that sort of thing in public, y’hear? I don’t know what sort of crazy stuff you got up to in the big city along with this, erm, _friend_ of yours, Kurusu, but we don’t welcome that sort of stuff here, understand?”

“...I understand,” Akira replied, his voice intensely deep and totally drained of any and all emotion. Goro felt a spike of fear stab his heart just at hearing Akira sound like that, he sounded... he sounded like he was in a bad, _bad_ way. 

“Mmh...” The cop grunted, then started to back away, putting his baton back in his belt. “Now you two hurry and finish up your walk, and get on home, alright?”

Goro nodded, not taking his eyes off Akira, too concerned to give a fuck about the jackass cop anymore. A few loud footsteps, and then they were alone again.

Goro squeezed Akira’s hand again, and this time got at least a bit of a response; a soft, wounded whimper. Goro’s heart ached. “...come with me, alright?” he suggested, voice as soft as he could make it.

Akira nodded, eyes still downcast, and Goro held on tight to his hand as he turned them around. He led them through the town’s streets, out towards the residential area, then beyond it, past where the lines of buildings ended, towards the hill they had made into their frequent hang-out spot this summer, star-gazing or just enjoying each other’s company and the cool night air.

Goro sat down first, patted the grass next to him, and with a loud sigh, Akira plopped down too, some of the tension finally leaving his body as he sat. 

Goro scooted closer, wrapped an arm around Akira’s shoulders, and held him as Akira slumped against Goro’s side, nuzzled his face weakly against Goro’s shoulder and chest.

They stayed like that for a long while, eventually laying down together, Goro laying on his back, Akria half curled up on top of him. Goro ran his fingers gently through Akira’s messy curls, pressed the occasional, instinctual kiss against his scalp, and listened to the sound of the wind, of the two of them breathing slow and steady, of their hearts beating gently.

Eventually, Akira started to speak, his voice much softer and more vulnerable than Goro thought he had ever heard from Akira. “...I hate this place. This stupid town. It’s been this way _forever_ , stifling and stuck-up and old-fashioned in all the worst fucking ways... honestly, Goro, if you weren’t here with me, I...”

He trailed off with a weak, helpless, incredibly sad laugh. Goro held him tighter, kissed his head again. Akira took a few deep breaths, then continued, still quiet. “Everybody here _hates_ me.”

Goro felt his eyebrows raise up. “Hate is a strong word,” he quipped meaninglessly, hoping to distract Akira even just a little from such a dark thought.

“Yeah, well, they’ve all got skulls so thick and solid that they’re _strong_ enough to crack a mountain, so...” he snarked back, lots of bite in his tone, but little passion.

Akira was quiet for a few moments, his eyes closed, and Goro could practically feel the vibrations of the gears turning in his head as he tried to form what he was going to say. After a bit, he let out a noisy grunt of a sigh and shifted in Goro‘s arms, flopping down until his head was resting in Goro‘s lap, nuzzling his head there until he was sufficiently comfortable. When he was, he took a deep breath and began.

“...when I was a kid,” he said slowly, carefully. “Like, when I was in elementary school, I... unintentionally made a lot of enemies.”

“Get into one too many playground fistfights?” Goro hazarded. That was pretty much how his elementary school years had gone. 

“More like I accidentally came out of the closet to literally everybody in town before I even know what the hell I was talking about,” Akira corrected him, sounding agitated. Goro decided to stop it with the quips for now. He went back to petting Akira’s hair though, and the tension seemed to bleed from Akira’s muscles as he did- good call.

Another few deep breaths, and he went on. “The other kids were all talking about their crushes and what movie stars and seiyuus they liked and stuff, and none of them seemed to be able to understand why all the ones I liked were boys, when I was a boy too. It was stupid, but it ended up turning into this big argument and fight... We all got in trouble, but it probably would have ended there, except that I was still _so mad._ I thought that they were stupid for being such jerks about me liking boys, so I complained about it to the school staff and the teachers, all of whom were _also_ homophobes, naturally."

The more Akira recounted his story, the more Goro had to take slow, calming breaths to suppress his instinctive desire to go out and bash in the heads of the townspeople here. Shittheaded motherfuckers. Akira wasn’t done, though. “The adults spread the story around, and it basically got all over the town at that point. From then one, all the store owners gave me the stink-eye when I’d try to buy candy or something, the old ladies who used to give me sweets would just lecture me on how ‘impure’ and ‘disturbed’ I was...”

Akira’s breathing was getting tighter as he went on, and Goro switched from petting his hair to rubbing calming circles on his chest- or at least he tried to, as Akira grabbed Goro’s hand and pressed it against his heart as soon as it got close. It must have been on instinct, though, as Akira’s eyes were still doing their thousand-yard stare, dim and unfocused. “...the worst was my parents. They just... stopped talking to me. We used to have these fun family outings all the time, take trips to the parks and shopping malls in neighboring towns, they’d play me their favorite 70‘s songs and complain about their co-workers. Then they found out, and they just got... quiet. We’d talk a bit here and there, but mostly they’d just sigh and sound disappointed in me no matter what I did.”

Goro thought back to the uninterested distance Akira’s parents had treated the two of them with throughout the summer, and grimaced. “Frankly, if they acted like that, I’m surprised they didn’t throw you out on the street at some point.”

Akira snorted, no heat or humor behind it. “I was scared they would for a while, once I learned that parents did that sometimes to their queer kids. I think they just... decided that I was ‘too far gone,’ or something. That if I was that ‘corrupted’ as a kid- and I was _really_ stubborn about it at first, before I learned to just keep my opinions to myself, I shouted back at _anyone_ who tried to lecture me that I was wrong for liking guys. But... yeah, I think they just thought that they’d irreparably fucked up in raising me, and that just somehow permanently numbed their hearts to anything and everything about me. Letting the two of us stay here this summer, feeding us and all that... I think it’s just out of duty at this point. Obligation, or whatever.”

“...which explains why you ended up in a run-down, cobweb-filled attic for a year after your run-in with the Molesting Piss-Man.” Goro realized grimly. 

Akira didn’t even laugh at Goro’s nickname for Shido, not that Goro really expected him to at this point. “Yeah... When the assault charge thing happened, I think they were just... relieved. More than anything else. I think everyone in this helltown was relieved; they had treated me like I was a plague-carrier for years, whether I was loud and rebellious or more recently when I stopped bothering to try and talk to people, or be honest about stuff. Me getting sent to Tokyo for a year must have been like a breath of fresh air for all of them.”

Goro grimaced, rubbed his thumb against the logo on Akira’s shirt anxiously. “And here I was thinking I had the worst childhood out of anybody I knew...”

“I mean, you definitely did,” Akira shook his head, or did so as much as he could while in Goro’s lap. “It isn’t a misery competition or anything, but my shitty, isolated years here don’t really compare to what you went through.”

“ _More_ bad things happened to me, perhaps,” Goro shrugged. “But the feeling you describe, of being treated as if you were an unpleasantly stained bedsheet that could never get clean no matter how many times you washed it... That was more or less my experience wherever I went. Since birth, really.” 

Akira started petting Goro’s hand now, which was kind of absurd considering how miserable he had been just moments prior, but it was also just a very Akira move. Goro kept rubbing his chest too, at the very least they could try and give each other comfort. “First as the son of the woman who worked double shifts at the soapland- my mother only doing so, of course, so she could feed the two of us and, as I found out later, make the monthly payments that Shido was extorting out of her. Then, I was the kid of the woman who committed suicide, or the orphan whose foster parents didn’t care about him- and actually, now that I remember, there was one time where that same small-town homophobia was turned on me as well.”

“Jesus fuck...” Akira muttered, hatefully. He had the same vengeful fire in his voice that Goro had felt while Akira had been talking, which was comforting, in a strange way. 

Goro nodded, and went on. “Quite. I was foolish enough to let my guard down at one of the homes I lived at briefly. Things were relatively peaceful, if uneventful, and puberty was just starting to awaken... that side of me. I summoned up my courage and confessed to a boy I thought was cute behind the school one day, and of course he spread the story throughout the entire town before the week was out. I was sent back to the orphanage not long after that, unsurprisingly.”

Akira swore something filthy under his breath, and Goro chuckled, just a little. He sighed, shifting around on Goro’s lap until he was laying on his back, eyes meeting Goro’s now. “I guess Tokyo was a fresh start for the both of us, huh?”

Goro laughed properly at that, shook his head. “Akira, with everything the two of us went through in that city... it’d be inhumanly generous to even call it a ‘mixed blessing,’ frankly,” Akira chuckled at that too, just as ruefully as Goro, but a more genuine smile curled on both of their lips soon enough. “That said... I suppose it was quite liberating, in a sense, to have the sort of control over how others perceived me that I had. My image, my activities, how hard I worked and how cheerful I was... it became an obsession, of course, and a remarkably unhealthy one at that. Still... it was nice, in a strange way.”

Akira nodded. “Same here. All my friends and confidants and just, people I knew and stuff, I can count on one hand how many times I spoke up for myself or said an honest, unfiltered opinion around them. But at the same time, wearing a mask around everybody is a choice, you know? Better to be able to make that choice than have everybody shove their own preconceptions onto you...”

His mouth twisted grimly- then loosened into a smile and a laugh surprisingly quickly. “Though, mask or not, I think you were always able to see through me, huh?”

Goro chuckled. “Something like that. I could tell you were like me, calm and in total control on the outside, a volcanic hellscape of fire and jagged rocks on the inside. And I assume the same is true vice-versa.”

Akira nodded, smiling, and squeezed Goro’s hand more tightly against his chest. Goro flipped his palm over and squeezed back.

Akira’s gaze drifted off of Goro’s face and up to the stars, and a peaceful sort of silence fell between them. Goro looked up too; it was strange, he had never really put much weight into therapy, even after going through it for a while himself, back at the rehab spa he had stayed at for a while, after everything was over. But it really was remarkable, how much physically lighter his chest felt, even just after recounting wide, sweeping chunks of his traumatic past-

-uh oh. Goro cut off his train of thoughts as Akira’s grip on his hand got tighter, and as he blinked and snapped out of his thoughtful reverie, he noticed the silence between them had gotten much more tense again. He looked back down at Akira-

-Akira’s face was... _pinched_ would be the word Goro would use. All scrunched up and very obviously struggling with something. It got less wrinkled and strained when Akira noticed that Goro was looking at him, but the atmosphere was still crackling with unspent energy.

Akira sighed, a too-small release of some of his nerves, and started to speak again, his tone all hesitant and nervous. “You know... being around you, Goro- back in Tokyo I mean, but also these days too, uhm... you’ve always made me feel... free.”

Goro blushed very quickly- that was way sweeter than he had been expecting. Akira was continuing on though, like a boulder picking up speed as it slid down the side of a bottomless canyon. “Or I guess it’s more that I only figured out what it felt like to feel free when we started hanging out together.... like I could do anything, _feel_ anything, be true to myself and not suffer for it... I’ve only ever really felt that way when I’ve been around you, chatting in Kichijoji or Leblanc, fighting together, scheming together, just chilling out around town this summer, it’s...”

He was pretty red in the face now, and Goro felt like his freckles were sunspots too. Goro looked away, into the endless void of Akira’s curls, repositioned his hand until he could hold Akira’s properly, squeezed it tightly. “...it’s the same for me, of course. Spending time with you, Akira... it’s the most alive I’ve felt in over a decade. No, it’s the _only_ time I’ve felt alive in over a decade. I’m sure that sort of dependence on a person isn’t healthy, but...”

“No, I get it, it’s the same for me,” Akira shook his head, smiled softly. His nerves were still all over the place, visible in his hands and the corners of his face, but he seemed to have gotten his stride back at least.

Slowly, Akira pushed himself back up until he was sitting properly, facing Goro- further, actually, until he was sitting _formally_ , knees on the grass, his feet tucked under his butt. He took a deep breath, and when he started speaking, it was the most rehearsed, thoroughly-thought-out thing that Goro had ever heard come through his lover’s lips. “Goro, a bond like ours only comes once in a lifetime... I’ve almost lost you too many times; after Sae’s Palace, in that cruise ship, in Maruki’s reality... and somehow, the whims of fate have kept bringing us back together each time.”

“But I don’t want to rely on something as unreliable as fate to keep us connected anymore. I want our bond to be kept strong through our own efforts, through what we build together.” Akira rose up until only one knee was touching the grass, and Goro felt his eyes instantly start to tear up as he saw where this was going. 

Akira reached into the inner pocket of the blazer he was wearing and pulled out a small box. “In the end, some government-regulated ceremony doesn’t really _mean_ anything- some tradition made up by rich farmers so they could use their children to quire each other’s property isn’t some grand promise of everlasting love...” Goro’s teary pout broke into a watery smile- it wouldn’t be Akira without at least some rebellious anti-establishment rhetoric thrown in there.

“But, all the same,” he went on, smiling sheepishly as he held the box with both hands. “Even if it’s ultimately meaningless, or if we have to go to another country to find someone to hold the ceremony for us, or only the two of us ever really understand what our rings symbolize to us... I want this. I want this with you; a choice and a promise that we both make to fight with all our strength against whatever shit the world throws at us next to try and tear us apart, even if it’s just our own dumb, stubborn asses starting a huge argument over some unimportant bullshit.”

“So, Goro-” and Akira’s nerve, his courage seemed to falter, just for a second, anxiety rushing back up into his eyes and tightening his jawline-

-but Goro reached out and grasped Akira’s hands in his, cupping both of their palms around the small box, the brilliant warmth in his heart keeping an achingly huge smile on his face. The tension vanished as their eyes met, and sounding way less prepared or polished, just totally natural, totally unmasked, purely from his heart, his smile all messy and askew, Akira asked, “...Marry me?”

Goro let out a wordless, watery noise of joy, and dove forwards to kiss him, long and passionate, then over and over and over again. He made certain not to crush Akira’s ring box in the process, but he just couldn’t help himself, only able to speak for brief moments in between kisses. “ _Yes,_ ” a kiss, “ _Of course, yes,_ ” another, “ _you absurd_ ,” more kisses, “ _overdramatic **idiot...**_ ”

Goro lost track of time, losing himself in their kisses, in the hearth-like warmth between them, the giddy, tender joy. Eventually, they slowed and stopped, but they stayed pressed close together, even as Akira took out the ring and reverently slid it onto Goro’s finger. 

He gazed at it, marveling; it was a _really_ nice ring, two sizeable, intricately carved and cut gemstones, one blood red, one blinding white, each forming half of an artistically-shaped heart. It must have cost a hell of a lot. “It’s incredible... where on earth did you even _find_ something like this?” he asked, looking back at Akira with wide eyes-

-Akira was smirking. Uh oh. “...Akira.” Goro said, warningly.

The smirk turned into a grin. “Did you _steal_ this?” Goro asked, trying to sound stern, but he was starting to grin too, because that would be kind of perfect, honestly.

The grin grew wider. Goro couldn’t keep up his serious façade anymore and sputtered into a laugh, and Akira laughed too. 

Akira leaned in, kissed Goro’s cheek. “I didn’t _steal_ it, as cool as that’d be,” he shook his head, still grinning. “I just worked with Yusuke to make a design and had Futaba help me find someone who’d do custom orders online. I still had most of my share of the Mementos money, so after that, I just had to wait til it was finished.”

“Goodness...” Goro shook his head, eyes drifting back to the ring. “They must have worked fast...”

Akira chuckled nervously, looked off to the side. “Well, I kind of ordered it... just a day or two after you came back, so...”

Goro blushed furiously- Akira was so.... so...!

...his eyes drifted back to the ring, and a thought occurred. If Akira spent his Mementos earnings on this... well, Goro had amassed quite the nest egg himself during his three or so years of trawling through the subway tunnels. With a little effort, he could definitely one-up Akira when it came time to give him a ring in return-

-oh. Oh wait. Oh, oh Goro had a _much_ better way to one-up Akira than that. With how much Goro had saved up? Oh, this was going to be _excellent._

Cheerily, he kissed Akira’s cheek, and let himself relax into the warm, loving aura between them again. The two of them snuggled together, and ended up laying down on the grass again, Akira on his back, Goro curled up against his side, resting his head on Akira’s shoulder this time. With excitement for everything and anything the future could bring to them now, he kissed Akira on the cheek once more, and lifted his hand up to the heavens, staring at the gems twinkling above them and the beautiful, perfect star shining on his finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope the homophobia stuff wasn't too much. I've always sort of had that hc for Akira's past, in one form or another, though I haven't gotten to explore it much before. 
> 
> The proposal was cheesy as hell but I really liked how it came out X}D 
> 
> Last chapter going up hopefully tomorrow, but it's way longer than any of the other chapters, so it may take a bit longer, we'll see how much I can crank out over the next few hours.
> 
> <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuake Week 2020: Day 7 - ~~Soulmates~~ / ~~Nightmares~~ / **Free Day**
> 
> Months ago, an unexpected and incredibly welcome reunion. Some time later, the future begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one; took me a bit to finish the chapter and then my wifi died! Uploading this now on my phone's hotspot before it's too late X}P I'm proud of this one, enjoy!

**Months ago...**

**March 19th, 20XX**  
**Morning**

At least the train seat was comfortable.

It had been good, being able to say goodbye to everybody- and much to Akira’s surprise, it hadn’t really felt like he was saying _goodbye_ either, or at least not forever. 

After everything he saw in Maruki’s reality, and everyone making plans to split up and pursue their own dreams after Akira got out of jail, he had started to expect that he’d just slowly fade out of the lives of everyone he met and bonded with in Tokyo. That they’d pursue their own dreams, follow the goals that drove them forwards in life (something Akira had never had, before the Phantom Thieves), and eventually they’d make new lives for themselves, and leave their traumatic pasts behind- and leave Akira behind with it.

He kind of still had a feeling that would happen, or something like it, at least. But somehow, talking to everybody, running into Sumire at the train station, even the waking traumatic flashback that was seeing Maruki again... it boosted his confidence in the future, if only just a little. His bonds with everybody would probably still fade, but not completely. They’d all probably end up like distant relatives you only see at the occasional family gathering; running into each other every few years, a low-burning fondness still connecting you, but nothing much beyond that. Daily or weekly texts or hangouts online with the other Thieves would probably shift into monthly or every-few-months-ly phone calls, or maybe once-a-year reunions- Haru seemed like the kind of person who’d be really into organizing that sort of thing.

But it wouldn’t be the same. It’d be warm, and comforting, and reassuring to know that those bonds were still alive, but it wouldn’t be the same. Frankly, Akira was pretty terrified of what would happen to his mind, stuck in the living hell that was his hometown for the next year. Mona coming with him helped, but Mona coming with him was also the reason that he hadn’t let himself express any of his inner terror outwardly. Morgana was his closest friend, his constant companion through almost everything he had gone through in Tokyo, but... 

Well. There was only one person Akira had ever met that he’d been able to express himself totally honestly around, no masks, no expectations, just two fucked-up kids bonding over everything and anything.

Akira reminded himself that he should be thankful that he’d get to have even a distant, weak ongoing relationship with his friends and confidants. With him, Akira wasn’t even allowed that.

He didn’t cry. 

He had drained out all of his tears back in November.

...and then had wrung out whatever remained after Shido’s Palace.

...and then had shaken off the last couple droplets that were still hanging on after everything was truly over, while he was stuck in prison in February.

So he didn’t cry.

Just like everything else, this was something that he’d have to keep-

Laying on the small shelf by the window, Akira’s phone buzzed suddenly, a message coming in. Surprised, he snapped out of his spiraling, depressed reverie and picked the phone up. It looked like the text was from an unknown number... curious, Akira tapped the message open-

_I hope you saved a seat for me_

For a few moments, Akira just stared at the screen, the words slowly percolating their way through his brain...

Then his eyes flew wide. He snapped his head over, gazed out the window, half-expecting to see a cockily smiling face, a gloved hand waving at him-

Nothing.

...well....... it didn’t hurt to be prepared, at least. Knowing that he was just making his future self _really_ sad if this turned out to be a wrong number, or something completely unrelated, Akira picked up his duffel bag, and moved it very slowly and carefully from the seat down onto the floorspace in front of him, not wanting to wake Morgana up, especially over something this potentially stupid.

Almost the instant he set his bag down, the train shook, and started to move. Half-desperate, Akira glanced out the window again-

He felt something shift. Something pulse within him, like the first time he had seen Arsene, back in the Shibuya Scramble, or the thumping high in his chest after they completed their first heist, or like when he figured out that the warmth and the intrigue and the tugging, aching sensation he felt whenever he saw Akechi was love.

For the first time in over a month, Akira felt a spark of life light up in his heart. Half on instinct, half out of relief, he smiled, reached up to close the blind on his window-

-and just as he was sliding it down, he saw the reflection of a very familiar-looking pair of black slacks and dress shoes coming up from the back of the train and stopping at his row.

“Oh good, you did save me a seat after all. How thoughtful.”

Akira whipped his head around, and-

And he was back.

Goro was here. 

He was alive.

He was safe.

Akira felt his jaw drop open, gaping like a koi as he stared at a man he had thought dead, that he had feared dead. Akechi’s too-casual smile broke into a kind of mean grin at Akira’s expression, and Akira felt his own face morph into a grin too. 

...and then his smile started to get wobbly. Oh no.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Goro muttered, not quite annoyed, not quite worried, and as he sat down next to Akira properly, Akira felt his tears bubble up and start to flow all at once. He felt Goro’s fingertips hesitantly touch his shoulder, and crumpled up against Akechi’s side, pressing his face into Goro’s blazer, clutching at his lapels.

Goro sighed, and after a few moments, wrapped his arms around Akira, held him as all of Akira’s fears, his pain, his unquenched need all drained out of him.

All the while, probably too quiet and too muffled by fabric for Goro to hear, Akira couldn’t stop himself from mouthing and whispering over and over again, a mantra of relief, a prayer for it to remain true; _“You’re here, you’re alive, you’re safe...”_

\---

“...it was a pain in the ass, frankly,” Goro complained a couple hours later. Akira’s tears had taken a while to dry up, and even once they had, the two boys had spent a while just staying like that, holding each other, pressed close together. It was incredibly soothing. Goro smelled so good, even after having been cried on for a while. Akira was worried that Goro was going to get tired of having to hold Akira like that, but his chest rose and fell beneath Akira peacefully, his breathing slow and calm, and after a bit, he even rested his cheek against Akira’s curls too.

Once they untangled themselves and got back in their seats properly, Goro had, pretty abruptly, just started explaining what had happened to him after Maruki’s Palace. That was really comforting too; Goro’s habit of just dumping the intimate details of his life in sudden, unexpected monologues... Akira had really missed that. 

“I had to sit through all that pseudo-inspirational lecturing from the blue people, and then I get dumped on my ass in front of the damn Diet building, no idea if I’m still on the shitlist of the people in power or not.” He sighed, deeply annoyed. Akira thought he was very cute. “I had to sneak through almost half of fucking Tokyo, making sure no cops or easily-hackable security cameras saw my face or my trademark outfit, only to find that Shido’s cohorts _didn’t even bother_ to break into or ransack my apartment. The bastard really must have thought me a unthinking, utterly loyal little lapdog. Shitty little bald-ass bitch.”

Akira snorted out a big laugh- the last thing he expected to hear today was Goro Akechi snarling the word ‘bitch.’ Not only that, but Goro seemed almost proud of getting Akira to laugh; openly, honestly proud, a smug, sharp-eyed little smirk on his lips. Whatever he’d been going through these last few weeks must have really done a hell of a job stabilizing his mental state.

“He was a fool to think of me that way, of course. From the moment I started working for the bastard, I was compiling extensive notes and records of every shady deal he made, every criminal he had ties to, every politician and CEO that promised him favors in exchange for my services. I squirreled all the proof away in a hidden safe in my apartment, and after making a few backups, just in case, I made my way to Sae-san’s apartment, let myself in with a spare key she’d given me ages ago, and left it by her toaster.” The more Goro spoke, the more self-assured and composed he looked- not like his cocky Detective Prince mask or his caution-to-the-wind, so-powerful-he-could-afford-to-be-reckless Black Mask persona, but just... confident in himself. Frankly, as far as Akira was concerned, he deserved to be.

His expression grew a bit more serious though, as he continued. “After that... well, there was no way to know how quickly Sae’s prosecution efforts would go, especially since many of Shido’s co-conspirators were men with the power to make her job quite difficult,, so I thought it wise to skip town until things seemed safe. I went back to this little rehab center my mother and I lived at for a year or so when I was a kid. It’s ostensibly am onsen, but their clientele is almost exclusively abused women or people fleeing from similarly dangerous living situations. They’re extremely good at being discreet about who’s staying there, as well as providing services to help their clients get back on their feet and start their lives anew- therapy and various types of training programs to help them find jobs and the like. It’s quite a nice place.”

“I’m guessing you availed yourself of their services?” Akira hazarded, smiling gently. That really did sound like the best possible place Goro could have gone, all things considered.

Goro smiled back, but shook his head. “Not exactly. I had no intention of staying on their good graces, but they remembered my mother and I and seemed intent on not charging me for my stay, so I offered to work for my room and board. I’ll admit; I looked down on you for demeaning yourself by working all those part-time jobs, when you could just get as much cash as you wanted from killing shadows. But working at the spa... I found a strange beauty to the menial tasks I did for the few weeks I stayed there. Cleaning, washing sheets, restocking rooms... all quite therapeutic, in their own ways. Well,” he blushed, looked out the window. “They did insist that I have regular sessions with one of their therapists as well, apparently my fragile mental state was... visibly obvious. I’m sure that contributed to my improved mood, but... Still.”

Akira chuckled at that, and Goro wasn’t quite as mutually amused this time, but he wasn’t upset either. “I’m glad you had some time to, uh, start healing, I guess. And that you’re just safe in general.” He remembered his reaction to Goro showing up earlier, winced. “If that wasn’t obvious from... everything before...." A bit of fear started to creep in around the edges of Akira’s good mood, and hesitantly, he tried to confirm, “Uhm... you _are_ sa-”

“I am safe, yes,” Goro nodded, his smile warm and confidant again- embarrassing as it was for Akria, his obvious relief at Goro being around was clearly doing wonders for Goro’s ego. “Shido’s remaining goons are either in custody now or being hunted down by the police as we speak. Once the major players had been arrested, Sae sent word to the Inn that it was safe for me to return, and that she wanted a deposition from me when I got back.”

His smile grew a bit devious, and he leaned closer to Akira. “I did a bit of research, and found the day you were scheduled to return home, as well as the time your train was set to depart. After that, I made sure that my train to the city would arrive shortly before yours left, rendezvoused with Sae’s guards, then dipped out on them as we passed your train, sneaking my way onboard just as the doors were closing. And before you ask, no, _they_ aren’t hunting me down now either; I recieved an annoyed but ultimately patient text from Sae earlier, while we were...” He lbushed a little, and Akira just blushed more, and Goro looked off to the side. “Regardless, I’m more or less a free man, now. Sae’s promise. It, ah, seems her mental state has improved by leaps and bounds as well. Quite reassuring to see.”

Akira nodded, the persistent worry in the back of his head that something would happen and Goro woudl get torn away from him again sated and quieted, at least for now. Goro though... he had started to squirm almost, his face uncomfortable, kneading one of his gloved hands with the other. “Something else?” Akira prompted.

Goro grimaced, nodded. He took in a very long, very deep breath, deep enough that his chest puffed up his jacket to an almost comical level, then let it all out in a slow, noisy whoosh. A little calmer now, he began, “...well... I mentioned that I was made to attend regular therapy for the few weeks I was at that inn, right? Thanks to those, I was... made to face some facts, shall we say. Facts that I am frankly tired of always running away from every time you and I ran into each other, these past several months.”

There was struggle clear in Goro’s face as he tried to find the right words, so Akira stayed quiet, tense as he was, and waited for Goro to be ready. The ex-detective’s face grew redder and more tense as he thought and thought, but eventually, looking like an overripe tomato, he spoke.

“...It has likely been quite obvious for some time that I have... _feelings_ for you, Akira,” Goro confessed, sounding he had just pushed a very large boulder over the crest of a steep hill. “I can think of several times over the course of our time together that I came within a hair of inadvertently saying as much. Your presences is... almost deviously relaxing to be around. It invites unabashed honesty to the point where I started to wonder if you had been slipping some truth-telling drugs into my drinks when we met up.”

“I’ve, uh, heard that before, more or less...” Akira tugged at his bangs, just as much blood rushed to his cheeks as Goro now. “And yeah, I... I wasn’t sure of course. Insecurity and stuff. But... after a while, I think I got pretty good at reading between the lines when it came to you, so...”

Goro let out a little breath of a laugh, smiled, nodded. “That’s good... and remarkably reliving to hear, frankly. My ability to honestly express how I feel atrophied away a long time ago, and I’ve only recently started to re-train that particular muscle... it’ll be reassuring to know that when I falter, you’ll likely still be able to see through to my heart.” He laughed again, still small, but much more rueful, a self-deprecating little cough. “Not that I’m presuming that you’d want to, of course, when it comes to my... feelings. I’m not so deluded as to expect that you feel the same way, that’s understandably _impossible_ after everything I p-”

Very deliberately, Akira cut Goro off before he could build up any more steam. He took one of Goro’s hands, firmly lifted it up, leaned forwards, and keeping his eyes locked with Goro’s as he did, pressed a long, slow kiss to Goro’s knuckles. “As long as we’re not running away anymore,” Akira explained quietly, still keeping their gazes locked, his smile soft for the moment, but he could feel it growing more and more with every passing second. God, he had been wanting to do that for what felt like _years_.

Goro’s face had magically transformed from a tomato to a very ripe beet, and he swallowed thickly, nodded jerkily, and when he replied “Good!” his voice was high and very flustered.

Well Akira couldn’t help but wear a big old grin after that, and he laughed as Goro tugged his hand away and covered his face. Akira couldn’t help but laugh at how much of a stereotypical anime-blushing-beauty Goro was being right now, and even though Goro turned in his seat and kicked over and over at Akira’s leg, Akira just laughed more.

The edge of it peeking out from behind Goro’s hands, Akira could see that he was grinning too.

When the embarrassment faded and Goro was able to look at him properly again, Akira continued, heart warm, but now that it was starting to calm down, getting more nervously rational again. “I know that this...” he gestured between the two of them. “Isn’t going to be as simple and easy as just saying that we like each other and then living happily ever after. Beyond all the traumatizing stuff we went through in Tokyo, we’ve both got a, uh, pretty generous supplies of issues when it comes to dealing with other people.” 

Goro snorted, nodded. “Understatement of the century.”

“Right,” Akira smiled back. “So... we’ll probably need a while to work through that, before we can just.. .be together. I’ve gotta start school again pretty soon after I get back, but summer break isn’t too far away. Maybe we can sort of use that time to... not start over, exactly, but figure out what it’s like for us to be a couple. Work on our problems, work out our problems together, spend some time around town just... chatting, like we used to, but more honestly now, that sort of thing. Then by the time summer comes around, we should be ready to, uh... be a happy and healthy couple, or something. Right? I don’t actually know how this sort of thing works, that just seems...”

His nerves were overriding his logical Leader-brain again, but Goro was nodding reaffirmingly. “No, from what my therapist told me, that’s more or less correct. Interpersonal issues will always come out in fun and unique ways when it comes to the person you l... the person you _love_.” They both went red at that, but they were both smiling at that too- Goro’s smile turning a bit sardonic as he continued, “But Akira, those sorts of issues, our personal ones and our interpersonal ones, we’ll likely be working on them for the rest of our lives. According to her, that’s generally how this stuff works.”

“Oh god, _really?_ ” Akira groaned, feeling a bit of Ryuji’s influence rising up in him. Maybe stupidly, he had kind of been hoping that they could just get the work done with and move on to happier times. Goro laughed, a little meanly, but it was still a nice sound.

“Well,” Akira started, and it hit him only after he started talking how embarrassing what he was about to say was, but the train had already started rolling, so... “...I guess that isn’t so bad a deal, as long as I’d get to spend my life working on all that with you.”

The implications of that clicked for Goro pretty quickly, and he went beet-mode again. Eyes back to the window, he managed to mutter, “...I was planning to stay in your hometown at least until the end of the summer, but I suppose I could extend the duration of my stay, depending on how things go... I have enough money to rent a hotel room f-”

“Or you could stay with me,” Akira grinned, getting his confidence back, at least in part because damn, Goro was just too cute when he got all flustered. “I can probably get my parents to let you share my bedroom with me, so long as we aren’t too, uh... noisy.”

Goro groaned again, and Akira laughed nervously, not having intended to sound like that, but then Goro murmured, “...no promises.”

Akira's eyes went wide, and Goro's eyes met his, still flustered, but serious about what he said. Akira felt hismelf start to lean towards Goro, Goro started coming towards him-

“Jeeze, so noisy...” a familiar, nasally voice complained from beneath them. Akira looked down in time to see Morgana uncurl himself in the duffel bag and stretch out his limbs. Slowly, he blinked open his eyes, looked around-

_“HUH?! AKECHI?!?!?!?!”_

**\---**

**Present day**  
**Early Afternoon**  
**Summertime**

“I am _so_ glad that Morgana agreed to spend the summer with Futaba,” Goro said, rolling off of Akira and onto his back, his bare skin coated with sweat, his limbs all floppy and boneless and very clearly just as sated as Akira felt.

Akira sneaked his hand under Goro’s butt before it hit the mattress fully and gave it a big squeeze. “Same here.”

Goro made an alarmed little almost-moan that quickly morphed into one of the adorable, carefree laughs he made when he was happiest. He still swatted at Akira a little though, and Akira swatted back, and they playfought for a bit until the last of the energy in their muscles gave out and they flopped against each other in a big sweaty pile.

“Your parents are coming back from their trip later tonight, right?” Goro asked drowsily, voice muffled by Akira’s hair.

“Mmhm...” Akira slurred back... though a thought that had been bouncing around his head for the last couple days started sparking some energy back into his braincells as it livened up again. Hesitantly, he asked, “...when do you think we should tell them about the engagement?”

Goro just snorted, which soothed Akira’s nerves a lot somehow. He lifted his hand up to the ceiling, splaying his fingers out so the ring Akira gave him caught as much of the afternoon light coming in through the window as it could. “It better be soon, if you ask me. It’s getting uncomfortable as all hell, having to wear this thing under my gloves.”

Akira snorted this time. “You could always just take it off, you know.”

“Dear, you’re going to have to cut my finger off at the joint if you want me to take this ring off,” Goro quipped, and Akira made an ugly kind of snort-laugh that brought a big grin to Goro’s face.

As the laugh faded and the conversation lulled, though, that nervousness from earlier came back. It was so much harder to stay emotionally stable these days, now that Akira had worked with Goro to stop burying his true feelings instinctively. “You know,” he started, voice small. Seemingly on instinct, Goro quickly brought up a hand and started petting his hair, which helped. Less meekly, he continued, “When we tell them- my parents, I mean... they probably aren’t going to approve.”

“Who fucking cares?” Goro replied archly. Akira rolled his eyes a little at that, but Goro insisted, “I’m serious, Akira. From the moment you first told me about your childhood, it’s been clear as the sun itself that those assholes don’t deserve you. They emotionally abandoned you before you were even in middle school; they can go drive off a goddamn cliff for all I care." It was a brutal kind of thing to say, but it was also just a very Goro thing to say, and so Akira found himself smiling regardless. 

Waving his non-petting hand around, Goro continued, “And besides, even if they do react poorly, it isn’t as if we couldn’t just take care of ourselves at this point. I wasn’t kidding back when I said that I have enough cash to rent a hotel room for several months. If they react like the bastards they seem to be, and you get thrown out or something, we could easily just find a nice place near your school and live off my savings for as long as we’d like.”

That didn’t address the emotional harm that getting thrown out would deal to Akira’s heart, but... well, in a way, it sort of did. Living with Goro, day in and day out... this whole summer had been incredibly therapeutic for Akira. Spending his days in a room or an apartment they owned, coming home to Goro after classes, waking him up with coffee and curry on the weekends, holding him tight through the cold nights... Akira was feeling more stable just thinking of it. To have that kind of control over his own life, to be able to follow where his heart led him, to hold all the responsibilities of living on your own in this world, and navigate them expertly with Goro by his side... what could be better than that?

“...honestly, I really like the sound of that, regardless of what my parents do,” Akira smiled, after thinking it over. “Having our own place to live, covering the walls with stuff we like, stuffing the fridge with our favorite foods...” He grinned, reached over and squeezed Goro’s ass again. “Not having to keep our voices down in the evenings...”

Goro’s grin was just as sharp as Akira’s and twice as big for some reason, and he nodded fiercely. “Well, in that case...” he murmured, voice full of devilish promise. Akira cocked his head to the side, curious, but Goro just chuckled and pushed himself up. He turned and clambered over Akira until he was hanging upside-down off of the bed, rummaging around beneath it for something...

“ _There_ you are,” he announced, and pulled himself back up to sit cross-legged next to Akira.

In his hands was a familiar-looking small box.

Akira’s eyes got watery instantly, and Goro’s grin grew beaming and bright. “Akira Kurusu, love of my life,” he began, Akira unable to stop himself from beaming back. Goro shifted his grip on the box, readying to open it, “Will you...”

He opened the box with a flourish, revealing-

-revealing... a folded-up piece of paper?

Akira frowned, not upset, just confused, and automatically reached out and took the paper. He unfolded it, feeling Goro’s excitement building and building the bigger the paper got-

 _Oh._ Oh, Akira’s eyes were getting watery again.

Signed, stamped and already approved, Akira held a one-year lease for an apartment in the nicest building in town, just a five-minute walk from his school. Both his and Goro’s names were signed as the rentors, Goro having somehow forged Akira’s signature with an honestly shocking level of detail and precision.

Light flickered out of the corner of Akira’s vision, and he lowered the paper to see Goro passing him his phone: on the screen, a folder of pictures, all of different angles and rooms from what must be their apartment. “I know you don’t plan on living in this landfill of a town for the rest of your life,” he explained as Akira put the contract down and started swiping through the gallery. God, this was a _beautiful_ apartment. “But I want to be by your side, to take care of you for as long as you have to be here. And forever afterwards as well, obviously.” In his peripheral vision, Akira could see Goro fiddling with his ring, and Akira’s smile grew even larger, almost aching now.

“Once you’ve graduated, we can travel all over the country, find a place we want to settle down in for good, or a place we’d like to go to college at, if that’s something we decide that we want to do. You told me that the other Thieves are all spreading out across the world, chasing their dreams; you deserve to spread your wings too. _We_ do.” Akira let Goro’s phone fall onto the sheets as his lover- his fiancee spoke, and they took each other’s hands, beaming as they locked eyes. “Let’s fly wherever our hearts take us, Akira. Break free of all the chains and expectations this shitty world tries to wrap around us, and live- and just _live_. Without any second-guessing, without any regrets.”

That song that always played at the Jazz Club in Kichijoji started playing in Akira’s head, and he got all teary again, had to let go of one of Goro’s hands to wipe at his eyes. “That was even cheesier than my proposal,” he quipped, voice all messy and watery.

Goro laughed, squeezed his hand. “Well, I can’t let you outdo me, now can I?”

Akira laughed too, dropped his eyes back down to the paper and the pictures; more real, physical evidence of the happiness that was waiting for him in the future. His future. Their future.

Ah, but he hadn’t answered Goro’s question yet, had he. Still feeling like an emotionally blown-out, watery mess, he leaned in and kissed Goro gently on the cheek, murmured into his ear, _“My answer is yes,_ ” another kiss, “ _Of course, yes,_ ” a hug, “ _you absurd,_ ” a long, tender kiss on the lips, even though Goro was blushing and pouting at Akira mimicking him from the other day, “ _overdramatic idiot..._ ”

“I can’t _believe_ you memorized that,” Goro whined, and Akira laughed, and silenced his complaining with another long, luxurious kiss, and more, and more, again and again- breaking off for a brief moment to carefully set the contract and Goro’s phone down on the bedside table- then coming together once more, wrapping arms around each other and pressing their hearts close together, warm and safe and, for what was probably one of the first times in Goro or Akira’s life, truly excited for what the rest of their lives would bring.

**\---**

**September 1st, 20XX**  
**After School**

Predictably, the first day back to school after summer break was a drag. It had been like that every year, of course, but going from seemingly endless, lazy days spent in the arms of the boy he loved the most in all the world to classrooms full of people who either hated him or couldn’t give a fuck whether he existed or not was... _rough_ , to say the least.

 _At least nobody’s investigating me and my friends for the murder of my principal this year,_ Akira snarked in his head as he strolled out the front door of the school, staring at the pavement and winding around groups of laughing and gossiping teens- 

“Akira! Over here!”

 _Ah, and there’s the other bright side to this year, right on time._ Akira’s dour expression quickly changed to a big, toothy grin as he heard Goro shouting, saw him waving for Akira from the side of the school gate. Akira rushed over, swerving around and between whoever was in the way, until-

-he crashed full-body into Goro, arms outstretched, launching himself at the man, but his fiancee was expecting it, and braced himself so he could stay upright, wrapping his arms around Akira in turn and kissing him back just as hard as Akira was kissing him. They broke after a few seconds, beaming and laughing-

Akira felt several dozen pairs of eyes on him, and looked around. Almost half of the student body had frozen, staring at him and Goro with wide eyes and shocked faces. Blushing, Akira turned back to Goro-

 _ **“Fuck off!”**_ Goro shouted, loud as he possibly could at the lot of them. In one smooth movement, he flipped the onlookers off, then slid his other arm around Akira’s waist and started walking back home, hand still defiantly raised in the air until the school was out of sight.

Akira was laughing the whole time, barely able to keep his feet under him. Goro started chuckling too as he lowered his hand, raising an eyebrow at Akira. “You liked that, did you?”

Akira shook his head, grin sharp and wide. “You are _so_ extra sometimes, Goro, I can’t believe you...”

Goro huffed, rolled his eyes. “They deserved it, the little bastards. The two of us kissing is the hottest thing they’ll ever get to see in their weak, pathetic little lives.”

“Oh, for sure,” Akira agreed, smootching Goro on the cheek. “You were super cool too, naturally. Just also _really_ extra.”

Goro mouthed the word _‘extra‘_ to himself and shook his head, muttered, “I have to stop letting Futaba teach you new words...” Akira laughed again, and their conversation derailed into lighter subjects from there.

As their apartment building came into view, though, a little ache tinged in Akira’s heart, and he squeezed his arm around Goro’s waist. “Missed you this past week,” he confessed.

“Mm, same here,” Goro agreed, squeezing him back. “But, now we don’t have to worry about our stuff any more.”

As the new school year approached, and the two of them got ready to move, they had realized that they probably ought to get their respective things that were still collecting dust around in Tokyo, especially if they were going to start traveling and looking for a new home once Akira graduated. So, while Akira had continued preparing for his classes, Goro had gone back to the city to collect the stuff from his apartment and Akira’s attic, saying hi to their mutual friends and giving the last of his statements for the Shido business to Sae. 

It was a long week, though fun, from the texts and pictures Goro had sent, and he had only gotten back early this morning- just a few minutes after Akira had already left for school, of course.l. Goro had apparently spent the rest of the day working with the moving service he had hired to unpack and arrange everything they were going to keep with them into the apartment, then made sure that the rest of it got delivered to the storage place safely.

Excitement quickly replaced the ache as the two of them climbed the stairs to their home. They exchanged a glance, a smile, as they unlocked the door, then-

Goro had done a fantastic job. The place was beautiful. the drab, unfurnished walls Akira had been living in for the past week covered with both of their supplies of posters, the shelves lined with Akira’s memorabilia from his friends and Goro’s nerdy-ass Featherman figmas. A big TV sat in front of the pretty comfy couch and chairs that had come with the apartment, an assortment of game consoles and blu-ray box sets set up artfully underneath it- even Akira’s knock-off Famicom, sitting in an already-dusty place of pride in the center.

The design of the room was a bit all over the place, what with the figmas and the anime merch and Risette posters and the huge (currently unplugged) chocolate fountain and replica bust off in the corner, but it was also just so... them. Full of stuff that reflected all the silliest, most genuine corners of their hearts and their lives, with enough space left over to fill with all the things they’d discover about each other, about themselves as the year went on.

Akira looked to the side, saw Goro gazing at the place with an immensely fond look in his eye. He kissed the side of Goro’s head, murmured a warm _“Welcome home, honey,”_ into his ear.

Goro turned back, and the gentle _“Tadaima,”_ he replied with was muffled as Akira pressed their lips together, as they kicked their front door closed, as they, clumsy and laughing, tried to make their way to their bedroom without breaking the kiss, as they made the apartment truly theirs for the rest of the night.

Summertime may have been over, but the living would stay peaceful and perfect and easy as could be for a long, long time yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A belated but satisfying end to my Shuake Week fic!!! For those of you clicking on this just by scrolling through ao3, I decided to write all this basically on a whim halfway through the week, and blazed through writing the chapters in an excited, frantic haze. It was some of the wildest times I've had writing, but I enjoyed making these silly little chapters so, so much.
> 
> These last two chapters, this one in particular, are more in line with the usual length and girth of the shit I write, and I'm so happy with how they came out- this fic is probably the sappiest, sweetest thing I've ever written, and I'm so proud of it X}DDD
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed too!!! I'm heading back to working on my [ Childhood Friends AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227510) longfic after this, but I'm sure my self-control will slip again soon and I'll write more like this again~ If you'd like to keep more up-to-date with my writing, or just want to see me do a ton of relieved posting once my wifi is back, my twitter is [ @SevventhSteen! ](https://twitter.com/SevventhSteen)
> 
> Love you all so much, and huge thanks to the mods for Shuake Week 2020 for setting all this up!!! See y'all soon! X}D


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